Steam News8 March 20242y ago

Step aside graphics cards, you can now run ray tracing on a CPU

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Full Quake II update

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Gameplay

addedThe developer, named Konstantin Seurer, has been steadily working on adding features to a purely CPU-run Vulkan-based version of the open source Mesa graphics library. By enabling the function Implement VK_KHR_ray_query, the modder has opened up the possibility of running ray tracing functions on CPUs, demonstrating the ability using a certified classic, Quake 2 .

Quake II changes

Ray tracing may well be more commonplace in games these days but it's still seen as a hugely difficult graphics feature to process, requiring powerful graphics cards with dedicated ray tracing processors. However, one developer has shown that maybe there's another way by enabling ray tracing on a CPU.

The developer, named Konstantin Seurer, has been steadily working on adding features to a purely CPU-run Vulkan-based version of the open source Mesa graphics library. By enabling the function Implement VK_KHR_ray_query, the modder has opened up the possibility of running ray tracing functions on CPUs, demonstrating the ability using a certified classic, Quake 2.

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